By Mohan Kuthar

Daijiworld Media Network-Ullal (JD)

Mangaluru, Sep 9: The DK administration and state disaster management authority jointly conducted a Tsunami scare mock drill at Uchila coast on Thursday, September 8.

The main intention of the mock drill was to train the staff of all departments along with the district administration to minimize the damage to life and property and make people aware of the situation and fill confidence in them.

Similar mock drill was also conducted at Guddakopla coast near Surathkal.

“The mock drill has been conducted on September 7 and 8 nationwide as a part of instructions from Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences. Hence we did the drill urgently and drill was conducted under the leadership of additional deputy commissioner and assistant commissioner to train all departments," said the coordinator of the drill Pradeep.

Even in last February, we had conducted mock drill with regard to the chemical leakage and we were not prepared much. Now people from all the departments have contributed effectively with their equipments and the success rate is 70 percent. This drill will be supervised by the chief coordinator and this was simultaneously conducted in three coastal districts of the state.” Pradeep added.

Mock Drill

“A message has come to the state emergency centre that an earthquake of the intensity 8.2 has taken place in Pakistan coast at 10.35 am and the district office has received an emergency call in this regard. The district administration has instructed every department to be on war footing and has arranged 10 vehicles with the help of RTO to shift people from the coast. Police force, health department and fire service are on alert. The district incident command post has been formed to bring all the departments together and Tsunami alert was given.” explained Dr Ashok, the assistant commissioner.

Later people were shifted to the safer place. 35 experts from the national disaster management team got ready to face the further situation and rescued the people from Bettampadi, Uchila and were treated at medical care centre. A ganji kendra was also opened. Even though this is just a mock drill, the intention and the training obtained is very important. This will help to minimize the loss to life, property etc in emergency,” Dr Ashok added.